


Dizzy

by nikkiRA



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Getting Together, Hogwarts Era, M/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 15:15:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12368457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikkiRA/pseuds/nikkiRA
Summary: James pinches the bridge of his nose. “Is this what it’s like to have children? You watch them fumble through life like lost puppies and you want to help them even though you know you should let them figure stuff out for themselves?” He places his hands on Remus’ shoulders. “Moony. Darling, dearest Moony. Sirius has been keen on you since fourth year.”





	Dizzy

**Author's Note:**

> i know the timeline in this is probably wonky but like..........idc lmao artistic license or whatever

The summer Sirius gets kicked out, the four of them spend the last three weeks of summer at the Potter’s house. Remus had been to James’ before, but he didn’t think he would ever get used to how goddamn big it was. Remus never really understood wealth. He didn’t know why three people needed this much space.

It could probably be worse, he guessed. He had never been to the Black manor – for many, many reasons – but at least the Potter house is cozy. From what Sirius had told him, his family home was anything but.

“This seems a little much,” Peter mutters, holding up what looked to be a pawn from a solid gold chess set. James looks over from where he was making sandwiches with his house-elf.

“Hey, my great-great grandfather won that in a chess game against a troll.”

“I didn’t know trolls knew how to play chess.”

“They don’t,” James says. “Neither did my great-great grandfather. It was apparently a pretty close game.”

Sirius lets out a slight laugh. Remus was usually completely aware of Sirius at all times, but now more then ever he was pre-occupied with him. All three of them had been keeping a close eye on Sirius lately, despite the fact that Sirius repeatedly kept telling them how irritating and overbearing they were acting.

“It’s not like my family was fine before this. Christ. My mother’s been a bitch since the day Satan birthed her.”

The three of them had exchanged a knowing look, which Sirius had not appreciated.

Despite his bluster, everyone could see Sirius wasn’t as fine as he said he was. Despite the large size of the Potter house, James and Sirius remained almost completely co-dependent on each other, so they slept in the same room. James told them that the first night Sirius had woken up screaming from a nightmare, and since then he had barely slept at all. Remus could tell – there were bags under his eyes that were getting more and more pronounced each day.

Remus didn’t know what to do. None of them did.

* * *

“I wish you would stop looking at me like that,” Sirius says, as James and Peter were playing with the solid gold chess set.

“Like what?”

Sirius blows out a puff of smoke. The smoking wasn’t new, but Sirius had never smoked as often as he did now, and he had switched to these horrid muggle cigarettes that made Remus’ lungs burn.

“Like I’m going to break down at any minute.”

“I might be less inclined to look at you like that if you would just talk about it.”

“Nothing to talk about.”

Remus gives him a look. “Don’t be an ass, Sirius.”

“There’s nothing to worry about, Remus.”

“You telling us that there’s nothing to worry about isn’t going to stop us from worrying.”

“Why not?”

“D’you remember in second year, when you all thought there was something wrong with me and I kept telling you there was nothing to worry about? That didn’t stop you from worrying.”

“That was different.”

“Why?”

“Because you were a goddamn werewolf.”

Remus can’t help but smile slightly. “Still am,” he says. Sirius nudges him lightly with his foot, and Remus sits forward, starts pulling up grass. “You should talk about it.”

Sirius didn’t look at him. “There’s nothing to worry about, Moony. It’s better this way.”

Remus wants to tell him that jut because your family was horrible didn’t mean getting kicked out hurt any less, but he isn’t sure how appreciative Sirius would be about that. So instead he just throws a handful of grass in Sirius’ face.

Sirius laughs and stubs out his cigarette. He lays down, placing his head on Remus’ thigh. Remus entangles his hand in Sirius’ hair before he can think better of it.

“It’s okay to be upset,” he says a few moments later. Sirius sighs. 

“How come you never listen to me when I say I’m fine?”

“Because you never are.”

Sirius smiles. It was a genuine smile, one that Remus hasn’t seen since he got here. His eyes crinkle as he looks up at Remus, and Remus’ heart suddenly feels three sizes too big for his own chest. “You’re too smart for your own good.”

“Tell that to Slughorn.”

“You’d be good at potions if you just stopped overthinking everything.”

“And you’d be okay if you didn’t bottle everything up.”

“I’m not upset that I was kicked out,” he says quietly, eyes closed to block the sun. “Honestly, Remus. I’m not.”

“If you say so,” he says, defeated. Sirius sighs.

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Say that. It’s your way of winning even when you don’t win.”

“No one is winning this argument, Padfoot.”

Sirius turns his nose into Remus’ thigh, and Remus stops breathing momentarily, urging his body to behave, when suddenly Peter lets out a loud whoop in celebration. Sirius sits up quickly, as though he’d been shocked, as though he’d forgotten the others were here.

“Did you just lose to Wormtail? The hell’re you doing, Potter?”

Sirius stood up and bounded over to where the game had been being played on a picnic table. James had his head in his hands in shame, and Peter was doing something that looked vaguely like a dance and vaguely like a seizure.

Remus let out a breath and fell onto his back in the grass.

* * *

Sirius' mood fluctuated dramatically over the next few days. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it. Remus’ mood was usually directly correlated to the phase of the moon, while James’ was based on a certain Ms. Evans. But Sirius was all over the place, snapping at you one minute and draping himself all over you the next, declaring his undying devotion. Sirius’ mood swings were difficult to follow at the best of times, but now it was almost impossible.

But maybe – maybe – Sirius could have worked through it if it hadn’t been for the letter.

For the first time, Remus cursed the wizard post. If they had delivered it like muggles, someone could have intercepted it. Instead, it was delivered right into Sirius’ lap.

They all went silent as he read, his face getting more and more closed off. Then he abruptly crumped it up, threw it behind him, and got up, disappearing out the door.

Before Remus can debate the moral implications of reading Sirius’ mail, James grabs it and smoothed it out, sitting beside Remus to let him read it, too, Peter hovering over their shoulders.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. More words of violence from his mother, maybe, or his father, it he ever decided to give any kind of shit about his eldest son.

What he was not expecting was a letter, written in handwriting strikingly similar to Sirius’, that was only a few words away from outright pleading for Sirius to come home. And then signed, at the bottom, _Reg._

James swears under his breath and stands up quickly, running after Sirius. Remus and Peter exchange a look.

“I don’t think that could have gone any worse,” Peter says. Remus looks back down at the letter. He didn’t fully understand Sirius’ relationship with his brother. It was a complicated mess of brotherly love, Sirius’ protective nature, and the fact that Sirius had been the only one who stood between Regulus and the full force of their mother.

Remus crumples the paper up and places it in his pocket, out of Sirius’ sight. Sirius would likely scoff at him if he knew how protective Remus was being, especially since he already had to deal with James, a mother hen if ever there was one. But Remus couldn’t help but worry about Sirius and his self-destructive tendencies. Sirius would say Remus was coddling him, but for all the times that Sirius had taken care of Remus over the years, Remus owed him.

But he wasn’t doing this because he owed him. He’s doing this because Sirius deserved so much better.

He’s doing it because it’s the only way he knew how to tell Sirius that he loved him.

* * *

Sirius stayed away all day. James came back shaking his head and Remus handed him the crumpled up letter. James shoved it in his pocket and asked Peter, in the defeated way that said he just wanted to take his mind off of things, if he wanted a rematch.

Remus can’t sleep that night, too preoccupied with figuring what the hell he was supposed to do, was he even supposed to do anything? James was Sirius’ best friend. Surely if anyone were to help him, it would be James.

Remus eventually gives up and heads downstairs, wrapping a sweater around himself and going outside. The moon is clear tonight. Remus sighs as he watches it.

“Are you having a staring contest? I think the moon will win.”

Remus had had a funny feeling Sirius would be here, but that wasn’t why he was out here, honestly. “I was thinking how something so beautiful could be such a giant pain in my ass.” Something Sirius had in common with it, actually.

“That’s poetic,” Sirius says, lighting a cigarette. Remus had made the mistake of telling Sirius he should be carful with how much he was smoking, especially since he had switched to those horrid muggle cigarettes. Sirius had blown a puff of smoke in his face and told him to stop being a prefect.

(Later that night Sirius had crawled into his bed and told him he was sorry, close to tears, forehead pressed to Remus’ shoulder, and Remus had forgiven him, of course he had. But that was the first indication that Sirius’ demons were closer to the surface then they ever were.)

Remus doesn’t answer this, unsure if Sirius was making fun of him or not. Sirius took a drag and then threw the cigarette on the ground, stubbing it out with his toe. This is a huge waste, but Remus would rather Sirius waste them then smoke them.

“You should go to sleep,” Remus says, a tired refrain, especially since he knows full well what Sirius’ reply will be.

“Bit hypocritical, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been sleeping properly. James says you hardly come to bed.”

“James should keep his fucking mouth shut.”

“James is just worried about you. Just like –”

“You all are, yes Remus, I know, I could give myself this speech by now, you’ve said it so many times.”

Remus is quiet. Sirius eventually sighs and runs his hand through his hair, sinking down so he’s sitting on the ground, the brick of the house at his back.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’ve been a dick to you nonstop.”

“I know you don’t mean it.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Make excuses for me. There’s no excuse for being an asshole.”

“I know when you mean what you’re saying and when you’re just speaking out of your ass.” _I know you better then anyone. Maybe even better then James._

“You mean there’s a time when I’m not speaking out of my ass?”

Remus laughs and sits down beside him. Sirius bumps their shoulders together, and for a moment everything is okay, but soon a suffocating silence settles down among them and Remus, in an effort to do something, says probably the worst thing he could have said.

“I’m sorry about Reg.”

Sirius locks up. Remus regrets his words instantly.

“I don’t want to talk about Reg.”

“Sirius –”

“I don’t want to talk about Reg,” he repeats, stubborn as a fucking mule.

“You have to talk about something.”

“I don’t want to,” he says. Remus lets out a noise of frustration.

“Then what do you want to do? What is it that you want?”

Sirius looks at him. His hair is loose around his face, blowing in the wind. His eyes are dark. Remus is almost afraid of him.

“I want everyone to leave me alone. I want everyone to let me cope on my own terms. I want things to be normal again. I want… I want a distraction.”

Remus doesn’t know why, after years of pretending his feelings for Sirius didn’t exist, he says what he does. Maybe it’s the late hour. Maybe it’s the moon, even in its current state, always calling out to the wolf inside him, urging him to go from prey to predator, from victim to hunter, from cowardly to the most dangerous thing in the forest. Or maybe it’s just the way Sirius is looking at him. Whatever it is, it makes Remus say, “I can do that.”

It hangs between them, and Remus can tell that Sirius knows exactly what he means, can read all things Remus is insinuating, and he waits. Waits for the inevitable rejection.

But it never comes.

Instead, with the moon high above them and cigarette butts littering the grass at their feet (Sirius always made sure to clean them up before Mrs. Potter saw) Sirius leans over to kiss him.

Even in Remus’ brief loss of sanity, he hadn’t thought that would work. He didn’t think anything would actually come from it, let alone this, Sirius pushing his shoulders lightly so the brick wall presses harder into his back, lips slowly turning Remus’ brain into mush. He would have been surprised it he wasn’t so busy being ecstatic.

Sirius wasn’t the school slag, despite whatever rumours might be circulating, but Remus knows that his kissing history is a little more fleshed out then Mary MacDonald in fourth year and Emmeline Vance in a broom cupboard last April, something he’s still 87% sure he hallucinated. Not to mention, even if his kissing portfolio was as extensive as Sirius’, Remus’ brain wasn’t really operating at peak levels right now, if indeed it was operating at all.

But even if his brain wasn’t working the way it was expected to, Remus’ body knew well enough, through explicit fantasies he was too ashamed to admit to himself, what to do. So even as Remus’ brain completely checks out, Remus’ body angles towards Sirius and entwines his fingers through Sirius’ hair. It was something he had done before, but never like this.

Sirius kisses him like he means it and then pulls away. Then he kisses him again, pulls away but doesn’t go far, and finally nuzzles into Remus’ neck and breathes out the word “Moony.”

“Um,” Remus says, suddenly acutely aware of what is happening. “Um.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what.”

“Overthink.”

Remus lets out a laugh that is slightly high pitched. “This is not overthinking. This is panicking.”

“Remus,” Sirius says, his voice steady. His hand grips the back of Remus’ head and forces him to look Sirius in the eye. He has the sudden, irrational urge to tell Sirius how beautiful he is. ‘Moony, it’s okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t – I thought – it doesn’t matter.”

“No,” Remus says, able to see where this train wreck was headed and desperate to stop it. The only thing that could make this situation any worse would be both of them pretending it didn’t happen. “I was – I meant – oh, fuck,” and he leans forward to kiss the smile off of Sirius’ face.

* * *

Through their final couple of weeks they keep this up. Remus, who had never expected this to happen at all, let alone more then once, is constantly prepared to wake up from this dream.

He never does.

Sirius only shares a room with James because they’re practically joined at the hip; the Potters have more then enough bedrooms. So almost nightly Sirius sneaks into his room and kisses him dizzy, and in the day Sirius will return to normal. Remus pretends to be just as confused as the others about Sirius’ nightly escapades and his sudden improved mood, but he knows better.

Sirius had wanted a distraction, and Remus was happy to be that for him.

* * *

The ride on the Hogwarts express is uneventful as always. Sirius lays with his head in James’ lap and promises that they’ll wait until Remus is on his prefect duties before they fuck with Snape. When Remus has to leave to do his rounds Sirius gives him a lazy upside-down salute and a wink. Peter gives him a thumbs up, and James appears to be singing _God Save the Queen_ under his breath, although replacing all instances of the word ‘Queen’ with ‘Moony.’

Remus’ heart feels fit to burst with love for all of them.

Lily hugs him when she sees him. “How was your summer?” She asks as they head out for patrol.

There are a lot of answers to that question, so Remus settles for a lie.

“Oh, you know. Nothing special.”

* * *

With school back and a shared dormitory, not to mention the fact that Sirius appeared to be back to normal, Remus hadn’t expected anything to continue. He had figured things would go back to normal, with him pining from afar, like it should be.

So when Sirius crawls into his bed the night after the feast and casts an Imperturbable Charm on the curtains, he is surprised to say the least.

“What are you doing?” He asks, whispering despite the spell. Sirius grins at him.

“Are you unsure, or do you want to try dirty talk?”

Remus blushes. He’s fairly certain Sirius does these things just to get a rise out of him. “Jesus, Sirius, James and Peter are right there!”

“Are you doubting my charms ability?”

“I –” Remus makes an irritated noise. “Has anyone ever told you you’re really fucking annoying?”

“Once or twice.”

Remus rolls his eyes and kisses him anyway.

* * *

Sixth year continues down this road. It leaves Remus dizzy; half the time he feels like he’s just following Sirius’ lead, completely and utterly lost in the wildness that is Sirius Black. But then there are times when Remus pushes back, shoves Sirius down, kisses him like he’s dying for it.

Sometimes it feels like he is.

Being with Sirius is like he could ever imagine, something Remus finds quite funny considering he _has_ imagined it, many times. But in all of his wildest dreams, he doesn’t think he would ever have conceived of a Sirius as gentle as the real one is. It is something that takes Remus by surprise every time. That Sirius, a boy who tore through everything in his path like a bull in a china store could be so gentle with Remus. Remus always knew how Sirius felt about his friends, but the almost worshipful way that Sirius treats his body leaves Remus feeling almost lost.

He would hate it if he didn’t love it so much.

He tries to show Sirius, with his clumsy kisses, how much this means to him. How much Sirius has and always will mean to him. Tries to show him how amazing he is without giving away just how fucking in love with him Remus was.

He wonders if the others know, then decides he doesn’t care. So what if James and Peter found out? This was nothing to be ashamed of. Sirius was nothing to be ashamed of. For so long Sirius had been rejected by his family, had been a source of embarrassment because of who he was. Remus sure as hell wasn’t going to do that to him.

* * *

Sixth year goes by in a blur. He couldn’t tell you half of what happened. He knows he only blew up one and a half cauldrons this year (half because he still maintains the second one was entirely Peter’s fault). Gryffindor won the Quidditch cup, but Ravenclaw took home the House cup. Lily Evans and James started becoming almost friends, to the shock and surprise of everyone. The name Voldemort starts being said more often and with more fear. Sirius climbs into his bed, sneaks them into the prefect’s bathroom, whispers things into Remus’ ear that Remus knows he doesn’t mean. He kisses Remus until the world is spinning around them, takes him apart with his hands and his mouth, and Remus delights in doing the same.

And then, in May, Sirius sends Snape into the willow.

When he gets out of the hospital wing he hugs James so tightly it hurts his bruised ribs, buries his head in James’ shoulder to try and pretend he isn’t crying, thanks him for not letting Remus become a murderer. James hugs him back and doesn’t mention Sirius at all.

Dumbledore had come to see him in the hospital wing to tell him what had happened that everything was taken care of. Snape would not tell.

Then Dumbledore had asked him a question: did Remus want Sirius to be expelled?

“As you were the victim, Mr. Lupin, I think it only fair that you decide the punishment.”

Remus didn’t even have to think about it.

“No. Don’t expel him.”

And wasn’t that so fucking typical? For all he’s done, for how angry Remus is, he doesn’t want to punish Sirius. Not like that.

For someone with a wolf inside him, Remus sure acted like a lamb most of the time.

* * *

Sirius crawls into his bed that night, crying, and Remus hexes him.

* * *

On the train ride home he sits with Lily. James tells him not to, that Sirius should be the one making accommodations, that Remus shouldn’t have to separate from the group when it was Sirius who fucked up. Remus tells him it’s easier this way.

He knows it’s easier for him to find another compartment to sit in then it would be for Sirius. He and Lily have always been friends. Sirius has only ever had them.

He hates that he’s still making sacrifices for him. He knows he doesn’t deserve it.

He had never seen Sirius cry before.

* * *

Remus spends that summer hating. He hates Sirius. He hates Snape. He hates Fenrir Greyback. He hates the wolf who lives inside him. He hates the way his parents keep looking at him and he hates the way James and Peter’s letters carefully avoid any mention of Sirius, even though James fucking lives with him.

He hates the way Sirius sends him a letter once a week, even though he doesn’t answer, even though he never even reads them.

He hates how alone he feels. An invitation to spend the last few weeks at the Potters’ comes as expected, but Remus turns it down. James says he understands, but that he’ll be missed anyway.

There’s a post script, too:

_I promised myself I wouldn’t mention him but I wanted to let you know that he really misses you._

And for a moment, Remus hates James too.

* * *

On September the 1st he meets with James and Peter on the platform. Peter claps him on the back and James, mother hen that he is, fusses over Remus, making note of all of Remus’ new injuries. Peter tells him that James was made Head Boy, that Dumbledore had finally gone mad, and James tries not to look proud. Remus tells him he’ll make an excellent Head Boy.

There is an elephant among them, a Sirius shaped hole that they all refuse to acknowledge. Remus knows he has to be around somewhere, probably on the train already.

He misses him. All that anger and betrayal had disappeared over the summer, leaving only such an intense desire Remus sometimes felt like he couldn’t breathe. And it had seemed so easy, right after, to write Sirius out of his life forever, but forever was much easier to conceive of in theory.

So when they board the train, James pokes his head into Lily’s compartment to say hi, and because the universe has flipped upside down she smiles and seems happy to see him. And when James and Peter head to their compartment, Remus follows.

When they open the door to where Sirius is sitting he looks up, sees Remus, and goes pale.

For his part, Remus sits down, and after a moment Peter does too, and Remus asks him about his summer, and eventually James sits down, too.

Sirius doesn’t speak the whole train ride, and rarely takes his eyes off of Remus. He pretends not to notice.

* * *

Sirius keeps an eye on him all through the feast. He barely eats; James has to practically force feed him before Sirius will eat anything.

Remus stares at Sirius, too. He’s just subtler about it.

* * *

Remus walks in on James and Lily kissing in the common room. He thinks that’s the most obvious sign that the world is ending.

Dolohov, an asshole a year younger then them, disappears one day. Rumour has it he went to join Voldemort.

Annabelle Martin, a fifth year muggleborn, doesn’t come back from a Hogsmeade trip. Students aren’t allowed to leave the castle after that.

And in October, James is called to Dumbledore’s office.

* * *

Fittingly, it’s raining. Remus thinks this might be a horrible joke from God, except now more then ever he’s beginning to doubt. Remus always figured there was no God; turning into a werewolf at six years old will do that. Now he’s starting to think that maybe there is a God, after all, but he’s a fucking asshole.

Lily stands next to James as they lower his parents into the ground, holding his hand. Peter couldn’t bring himself to come.

Next to him, Sirius doesn’t cry. Sirius shakes. Remus tries to figure out what to say to him, but it’s impossible, because Remus hasn’t fully forgiven him and Sirius certainly hasn’t forgiven himself.

“Sirius,” he says quietly.

“I’m going to kill them all,” he says hoarsely. “Every fucking Death Eater. Even Voldemort himself. I swear to God I will.”

Remus isn’t sure what to say to this. His only thought is _what God?_

* * *

The thing is it’s gone on so long that Remus doesn’t know how to end it. There’s too much going on, now, too much that has happened, and the incident from May seems to distant but he isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do.

James finds him. And Remus loves him fiercely, because James barely smiles anymore but he tries. He tries harder then any of them.

“I need to talk to you,” he says, cornering Remus in the common room. Obligingly, Remus puts his book down.

“Okay.”

“It’s about Sirius.”

“Okay,” he says, less surely. James sighs and sits down beside him.

“I know you two used to be shagging.”

If Remus had been eating, he would have spit out his food. As it is, the book slips from his fingers.

“I – what?”

“Moony. I love you both, but whoever was casting those Imperturbable Charms didn’t leave much to the imagination.”

“So then Pete knows, too?”

“I think half of Gryffindor Tower knows, mate.”

“I – Jesus.” He rubs a hand over his face.

“And I told myself I wouldn’t get involved, because it was your business and you had every right to shut him out. But now – I don’t know. Everything is so fucked up, Moony. And I didn’t take any of this seriously, I didn’t think it would get this bad. But it is. It’s worse.”

“You want me to forgive him.”

“I think you already have, Remus.”

Remus sighs. “How do you go back from that? From what he did, what we were, whatever the fuck that was. I know it wasn’t anything, really, that he just wanted a distraction –”

“Oh my God,” James interrupts. “Remus, are you fucking kidding me?”

“What?”

James pinches the bridge of his nose. “Is this what it’s like to have children? You watch them fumble through life like lost puppies and you want to help them even though you know you should let them figure stuff out for themselves?” James places his hands on Remus’ shoulders. “Moony. Darling, dearest Moony. Sirius has been keen on you since fourth year.”

Remus doesn’t really absorb this. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You two are the literal worst, do you know that?”

“James, what the _hell –”_

“He wasn’t using you as a distraction, you tosser.” Despite his frustrated tone, he is smiling. “He’s fancied you for years. More then fancied, if you ask me, not that anybody ever fucking does. And he swore me to secrecy, but I – there are more important things, right now. Besides, Sirius told you and Peter that I wet the bed until I was nine, so he can fuck right off.”

“Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand?”

“No, no, he was pretty fucking clear.”

There’s a block in his mind, and he just can’t get past, this idea of Sirius as beautiful, as wonderful as everything Remus has never been, as so completely out of his league. And it’s not that he doesn’t know that Sirius loves him, because Sirius loves so, so strongly, with every part of him, but he had always assumed Sirius loved him the way he loved James. And these words that James is saying don’t make any sense, but this world he is living in doesn’t make any sense, either. Not anymore.

The world has fucked him over so much. Maybe he deserves this.

“He’s been real bad, Remus. My parents –” James swallows. “They were the only ones he had, really. And he’s real fucked up. And that’s not to say – I don’t know. It’s just that you seem kind of fucked up, too. And you guys are always better together.”

Remus takes a shaky breath. “I forgave him a long time ago. But it felt like… I thought I should be mad at him. I thought there should be some kind of line he shouldn’t be allowed to cross. But I guess there isn’t a line where Sirius is concerned. Not for me, at least.”

“Not for any of us, mate.”

He shakes his head. “What’s going to happen, Prongs?”

James throws an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t think anybody knows.”

* * *

James and Peter conveniently make themselves scarce on a night when there isn’t anything to do. Sirius had gone to bed early, and with a figurative push from Peter and a literal one from James, Remus heads up to the dorm. Sirius’ curtains are drawn, and Remus stands outside them for a few moments  before he can work up the courage to open them.

Sirius looks up when the curtains open, and his eyes widen when he sees Remus.

“Can I sit down?” Remus asks, whispering so his voice doesn’t crack. Sirius scrambles into a sitting position, making himself as small as possible.

“Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Course.”

Remus sits down a the edge of the bed, and any idea he had had in mind of what he was going to say completely escapes him. They sit in silence for a few uncomfortable minutes before Remus decides to just dive in with the truth.

He is a Gryffindor, after all.

“James said you fancied me.”

Sirius makes a noise. “James is a fucking snitch.”

“Sirius.”

Sirius looks up at him. “What do you want me to say?”

“Is he right?”

“Why would he lie?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he just wanted us to talk again.”

“Do you want us to talk again?”

 _I miss you,_ he wants to say. _Nothing is the same without you._

“Do you want to know why I was mad at you?”

“You have every right to be upset with me.”

“No, you have to understand. I need you to understand.”

“Okay. Okay. I’m sorry.”

Remus takes a breath.

“Sirius… I’ve always been a monster. No, don’t interrupt. But the thing with you, and with James, and with Peter, but you more then ever – I never felt like a monster around you. But this… I felt like a monster. Worse, Sirius, you made me a monster. You took the worst thing about me and you used it to get back at Snape. The thing I hate most about myself, you took it and used it for your own gain. And I…” Sirius is crying again. Remus finds himself getting annoyed. “Sirius, please.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know it’s not enough. I know it’s never been enough.”

“Why did you do it?” It’s the one thing he’s never been able to figure out. “Why did you let it get that far?”

Sirius looks down in shame. “I don’t know, Moony. I think it was just that everything was changing, in the worst way. And so I went back to what I knew. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted to really hurt Snape. Not just because he’s Snape, but because suddenly he was everybody. He was my parents and all those shits he hangs out with, all those pricks who want to hurt people like Evans, and like you, and for the first time I felt like he really deserved it. And I’m not sorry for that. But I am sorry – more then you can possibly know – that I used you to do it. You’re not a monster, Remus, if anyone is it’s me. I’m sorry I made you think that you were.”

Remus is quiet. He isn’t entirely sure what to say.

“And for what it’s worth, James was telling the truth,” Sirius adds after a moment.

“You said you wanted a distraction.”

“I did. But – it’s always been you. I knew in fourth year, but it started way before that.”

“So what was it, then? What was I? What _am_ I?”

“Remus,” he says seriously. “You’re everything to me.”

And he doesn’t know what he could possibly say to that, so he leans forward to kiss him.

“I hated you,” he says, and Sirius clings to him desperately. “I fucking hated you.”

“Remus,” Sirius says. “Moony.”

“But I forgave you so quickly. And I hated that I did that. So I made myself stay mad, because I thought that I should.”

Sirius pulls him into his lap.

“James says our Imperturbable Charms are shit.”

“Maybe I wanted them to hear.”

And Remus can’t help but laugh. “Fucking pervert.”

And Sirius laughs, too. And the whole entire world is burning to ashes around them, but even for just a moment, things seem almost normal again.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @aravenlikeawritingdesk


End file.
